It’s a tedious process. Slowly but surely, the shattered remains of brand new solar panel tubes head to a recycling plant in Hayward.

Meanwhile the next phase of the company’s liquidation is under way. It involves getting rid of all the heavy metals left inside the building that were used to make the panels.

The Fremont Fire Department’s Jay Swardenski oversees the cleanup. He said some materials, such as cadmium, are toxic, and hard to dispose of.

“They don’t degrade at all, so we want to make sure we don’t allow these materials to get into the environment,” he said.

It’s not just the leftover hazardous materials, but also the machinery used to apply them to the glass tubes. “Certainly those tools will need to be decontaminated, cleaned up, handled correctly as they are taken apart,” he said.

Swardenski told CBS 5 the disposal process is going smoothly in Fremont, but what about nearby Milpitas? Solyndra leased a building on California Circle for the final assembly of its solar panels. But the cleanup at the leased building in Milpitas is in limbo, because Solyndra doesn’t want to pay.

CBS 5 found the building locked up, with no one around. At the back, a hazardous storage area was found. There were discarded buckets half filled with liquids and barrels labeled “hazardous waste.”

The building’s owner, a company called iStar, claimed in court documents, “there may be serious environmental, health and safety issues” at the premises. According to the documents, they include, “numerous containers of solvents and chemicals…and processing equipment contaminated with lead.”

“Essentially it looks like they left a pretty big mess behind,” San Jose State Assistant Professor Dustin Mulvaney told CBS 5. Mulvaney has written a white paper (.pdf) on solar industry waste for the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition.

Looking at CBS 5’s video, Mulvaney said it’s hard to tell how much hazardous waste is at the Milpitas facility. But he said one thing is for sure.

“Materials labeled hazardous waste require a lot more protocol, so its actually a lot more expensive to clean,” Mulvaney said. “It’s very sad looking at this facility taken apart like this, because a lot of money went into building this.”

Swardenski feels the same way. “It is hard. They are beautiful buildings; there was a lot of effort put into them. But we’ll work as hard to pout them back into productive use,” he said.

CBS 5 asked both Solyndra and iStar for comment on this story. But as of the original airdate, neither company has replied.

(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)

From the Guardian of all places: German far-right extremists tap into green movement for support

Debunking the popular view that equates eco-friendliness with
cuddly, left-leaning greens, …Hotbeds of far-right eco-warriors are to
be found throughout Germany. In the Mecklenburg region in the north,
they have been quietly settling in communities since the 1990s in an
effort to reinvigorate the traditions of the Artaman League – a farming
movement whose roots lie in the 19th century romantic ideal of “blood
and soil” ruralism, which was adopted by the Nazis.

Heinrich Himmler, the SS leader, was a member.

At the same time as it was butchering millions of people, the Nazi party supported animal rights and nature conservation. But it is disturbing for many Germans to think that while they support local producers and reject genetically modified food, pesticides and intensive livestock farming, there is now little – superficially at least – to distinguish a supposedly well-meaning, leftist Green from a far-right eco enthusiast.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

The elimination of Osama Bin Laden by American Forces should not be the topic of a political commercial and certainly not part of a campaign against a rival politician. However, the Obama campaign is clearly doing just that, not only in a political campaign commercial but in obvioulsy coordianted attacks on Mitt Romney by former presdient Clinton and current Vice President Joe Biden. Both Clinton and Biden esentially said that Romney wouldn’t have taken out Bin Laden, which is specious on its face. And they act as if Obama jumped on Air Force One, flew to Pakistan and shot Bin Laden himself, before returning to the Bat Cave.

Look, Republicans have long made the war on terror a political football. But that doesn’t mean the Adminsitration gets to play the same way. We have a common enemy, and success not only requires common effort, it requires acknowledgment of that fact. It is critical that enemy understands that internal differences do not trump certain fundamental external policy. The President should not pursue this line of political attack, it diminshes him and is counter to our interests.

Writing as as one mere mortal, I can confidently prophesy that someone is gonna’ look pretty foolish on May 28th this year!

The problem is with prophesies like his, we would be seeing all of Europe acting as One, and since that will happen only when Hell freezes over, he writes himself into the category of fruit-and-nutcase without even trying. He could of course be just blowing his own Trumpet, but really needs another six. Ah well!

The jet fighter-bomber pictured is but one part of the only Institution which guarantees the slogan ‘Never Again’. The Israeli Armed Forces are the means which states that the published aim of Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and all the other hate-filled outfits so beloved of such crawling cancers such as the BBC, the Guardian, along with just about all their festering stable-mates in the Mainstream Media; which of course is the total annihilation of Jews and their homeland, the State of Israel, will never happen.

We will no doubt read of the praise and flowery statements surrounding the faint movements towards freedom in Burma, not so much of the Islamic clamp-down in Libya, possibly a few lines about the theft of democracy in Egypt, and even about the ‘Reforms’ so proudly spoken of by John Yates on the blood-stained streets of Bahrain. We won’t see or hear of many birthday wishes for the only Democracy in the whole if the Middle-East; and I just wonder why that will be?

“Eamon Gilmore’s mischievous remarks at the Alliance Party conference last week can’t have been particularly welcome to his audience who take a different position from nationalists on a local Bill of Rights. Indeed in 2008, the party voted with Unionist MLAs to express “grave concern at the lack of cross-community support” for the Bill of Rights Forum report. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) duly followed up with proposals failing further to achieve cross-community support.

The Tanaiste called for “rights which reflect the principles of mutual respect for the identity and ethos of both communities and parity of esteem” – a phrase from the remit of NIHRC and the Forum. However he seemed unaware that both bodies refused to research such concepts, proposing instead dozens of radical, left wing demands.

The industry simply cannot stop itself doing politics through human rights, not least because it is floating in money from Chuck Feeney’s ‘Atlantic Philanthropies’. The American billionaire funds the Human Rights Consortium as well as NIHRC – until the Secretary of State called a halt. Owen Paterson said he wanted to preserve its independence “which could be compromised were it to start regularly receiving large amounts of money from external sources.”

One wonders if Eamon Gilmore’s officials remembered to advise, as Professor Colin Harvey did in a recent article on ‘The Detail’ website (also funded by Atlantic Philanthropies), that “the Irish Government – in recognition of the concept of equivalence – undertook to mirror the guarantees” on rights in the Belfast Agreement. Not music to the ears of our cash-strapped neighbour.

Fiona McCausland of the Consortium says (Platform, 24 April) that the Belfast Agreement was an international treaty “which provided for a Bill of Rights that would ‘reflect the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland’.” The Agreement of course did not provide for a Bill. It agreed only to seek advice on the possibility, while the industry ironically fought furiously against restricting that advice to our “particular circumstances.” With so much money could they not originate possible supplementary rights on parading and education, as Mike Nesbitt suggests?

And there the matter will lie pending the slim possibility of a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities coming out of Westminster. The Strasbourg court will instead remain supreme, assuming it weathers the serious storms over Abu Qatada and prisoners votes. No provincial Bill – with provisions that would make Ed Balls blanch – will ever see the light of day. “

Forget about swimming with the dolphins, it seems that swimming with boys constitutes some difficulty for one religious group.

“A Muslim family in Basel has been fined 1,400 francs ($1,550) for refusing to let its daughters participate in mixed swimming classes. The family had sought to avoid paying the fine on the grounds that the requirement for the girls to join the swimming lesson infringed on their religious freedom, online news website Le Matin reported. The parents argued that, in accordance with the teachings of the Koran, they wanted to instil a sense of shame in their children before they reached puberty. Mixed swimming lessons in primary school, the family claimed, would be incompatible with such an aim. Following the family’s appeal of the original Administrative Court verdict, the Federal Court decided to uphold the fine. The court stated that the obligation to participate in mixed swimming classes did not represent a significant assault on the family’s religious freedom.

When on raises the horrendous practise of Female Genital Mutilation some rush to suggest that this is not an Islamic centred issue. Maybe so, but it is one that some Imams take very seriously;

A British Muslim leader has been caught on camera advocating female genital mutilation. Mohammed Abdul, the Imam of a Bristol mosque, was filmed urging a follower to take women and girls abroad so they can be circumcised legally. The practise was banned by law in 2003, and it’s illegal to help or encourage anyone to carry out the barbaric procedure overseas. He recommends going to Africa or Arab countries. They know how to mutilate there.

Dr Yunes Teinaz, who works for anti-FGM charity Forward, tells The Sunday Times: ‘As a result of misinformation spread by so-called Muslim scholars, young girls are being mutilated and subjected to unimaginable pain and suffering.”

The problem is that there are plenty of these “so-called” Muslim scholars who support the vile practice..

We all agree that Syrian tyrant Boy Bashar is a thug. His regime is corrupt, supports terrorism, denies liberty, murders its own and has long been a client state of that even bigger menace, Iran. So, should we wish to see the fall of the House of Assad? Not necessarily – if this is what is driving change;

An Islamist group called “al-Nusra Front” claimed reponsibility on Sunday for a suicide bombing which killed at least nine people in the Syrian capital Damascus on Friday. The group named the bomber as Abu Omar al-Shami and said he detonated his explosives amidst 150 members of the Syrian security forces who were gathered outside the Zain al-Abideen mosque in the Midan district of Damascus.

Jihad is hardly the way to democracy. Is the only available alternative to the Assad tyranny a militant Islamic theocracy? Would that make for a more stable neighbourhood? It is a strange situation where the choice does seem to lie between terror and tyranny. Why should we get involved?

I found this a rather fascinating article which highlights a massive change about to hit the EU, in essence, the German hegemony is going to come to a shuddering end and the consequences are unknown. When I arrived in Holland this day last week, the Government fell. (Coincidence? You decide) The reason it fell is because the Coalition Government would not support any further austerity cuts, demanded by Germany. Meanwhile, across in France, it looks like the Socialist Hollande will replace Sarkozy and this is what he is says;

“It’s not for Germany to decide for the rest of Europe,” said François Hollande, soon to be French leader, unless he trips horribly next week. Strong words even for the hustings. “If I am elected president, there will be a change in Europe’s construction. We’re not just any country: we can change the situation,” he said. European allies are flocking to his cause from left and right, he claims. Not even Austria supports Germany’s austerity drive any longer.

What is the significance of this? Well…

This then is the birth of a Euroland growth bloc with well over 200m people and a commanding majority vote in the European Council, a defining moment in this saga. Mario Draghi at the European Central Bank is quickly bending to the new political dispensation with calls for a “Growth Compact”. The Commission – liberated at last – is finding ways to “extend deadlines” on fiscal targets.

As I keep saying, when leftists like Hollande talk about “growth” what they mean is more spending. So the reason for the recession is now presented as the cure – a remarkable volte face. Yet the fact is that outside of Germany (and possibly Britain) citizenry wants to see the State spending it has gorged on for years kept on going. This is electorally very popular if economically suicidal. The issue is what happens to German support for the EU when the majority of States challenge the basis of the German economic model. Frau Merkel has tough times ahead if Monsieur Hollande and his pals triumph. The “Growth Compact” Draghi talks about means Spending, loosening the fiscal ties, turning on the spending that cannot be afforded. This will end badly…..

You do not defeat terrorism by rewarding terrorists, regardless of how many bleeding heart liberals argue otherwise. Want to know where that flawed approach leads to? Read UNIONISM DECAYED 1997-2007 - It's my first book and it explains what happens when you seeek to appease terrorists and call it peace. It's available right now for ATW readers so make sure you get your copy by emailing the editor! This is the book that dissents from the herd mentality that doing wrong can lead to being right. It doesn't and this book spells out WHY.

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